No Longer an Academic Curiosity, It Now Has Measurable Impact on Our Lives

The age of intelligent machines has arrived—only they don't look at all like we expected. Forget what you've seen in movies; this is no HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey," and it's certainly not Scarlett Johansson's disembodied voice in "Her." It's more akin to what happens when insects, or even fungi, do when they "think." (What, you didn't know that slime molds can solve mazes?)

Artificial intelligence has lately been transformed from an academic curiosity to something that has measurable...